Both of them look good to me. The music output from Lilypond looks marginally better, but I don't like the font for the vocal text (something which can obviously be adjusted). This is a matter of some importance to me as I'm finishing up a set of ten pieces to submit for publication. If accepted I'm sure the publisher will have their own ideas about typesetting the music. If not then I'll self publish it and then Lilypond may become an important part of my workflow.

I looked at the documentation this morning on how to import XML files and found that I could also use an ETF file. Am I correct that either requires running a program in the command line? I've done a little of that (IP config, etc) and I know how to get there (click on start, click on run and your command line appears) but it's definitely outside my comfort zone. It would be helpful if you discussed that aspect in more detail. Thanks.

It seems that the ETF convertor is not maintained anymore, so I wouldn't expect it to work very well. But yes, that requires running a command-line program, just as with the MusicXML convertor. It wasn't difficult to use, though. To run the MusicXML convertor, I just typed "musicxml2ly ", where is the name of the MusicXML file, and it created a file with a .ly extension. I then ran LilyPond on that file, and it created the PDF.

If you're not comfortable with the command line, or not willing to learn, maybe LilyPond isn't for you. Although, it does seem there's a frontend for Windows: http://denemo.org/

If you would like to learn, I highly recommend you read the LilyPond tutorial: http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.12/Documentation/user/lilypond-learning/Tutorial#Tutorial

I myself am a computer programmer, so I find this to be a highly natural way of working. But I understand that this may not be typical. I'd be happy to help in any way.

Speaking as a Music Publisher I can say that LilyPond gives the most musical and professional looking prints possible with computer software.

The tweeks in Sibelius and Finale do not compare with even the most basic layout of a rough LilyPond score.

LilyPond may not WYSIWYG but the power and quality far out-weights this rather mute point for someone who really cares about the look and musical feel of scores.

We have started our own LilyPond Service Station at http://www.devilishpublishing.com/lilypond

This might help you get started not to mention the great LilyPond manuals which are light years ahead in simplicity and organisation than any £400 software!!

I think that Denemo is even more of a work in progress than MuseScore. It kept crashing when I tried it.

The best frontend is probably Rosegarden, which doesn't run on Windows, unfortunately.

Well I just tried using an xml file in Lilypond and ran into a basic problem. I've put the xml file in my my documents folder. My DOS skills are rusty to nonexistent. How do I specify the file, I tried just the name plus extension (Melody.xml) and it's unable to find the file. If someone would remind me what the proper syntax is for addressing files in the command line I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.